America's Greatest 19th Century Presidents (5 page)

John Adams

Being stationed in Paris did not mean that Jefferson served diplomatically only in France.  His primary purpose was to secure commercial treaties with European powers, so he dealt with European leaders across the continent. In Prussia, Jefferson found success and secured a treaty with Frederick the Great.  Among other notable trips was one to London, where he tried to help Adams negotiate a similar treaty with King George III but failed.

During his time in Europe, Jefferson was notably absent from the Constitutional Convention.  This did not mean, however, that he was unaware of the debates.  He remained informed about the proceedings, and was particularly dismayed by the lack of a Bill of Rights. Through his relationship with James Madison, which was much like a mentor-student relationship, Jefferson’s thoughts and messages helped influence the drafting of the Constitution through the actions of Madison, forever remembered as the “Father of the Constitution”.

At a personal level, Jefferson gained much from his stay in Europe.  He marveled at the architectural arts of the continent and studied them closely, which only strengthened his love for classical architecture and gave him ideas on how to expand Monticello.  He also honed his political philosophy as he watched the French Revolution unfold around him.  Being a proponent of natural rights, the French Revolution was favorable to Jefferson, even when many Americans began to sour on the Revolution during the Reign of Terror. But by then Jefferson had left France, returning to the U.S. to serve as Secretary of State in 1789.

Chapter 4: The Washington and Adams Administrations, 1789-1800

Secretary of State

The newly-elected President George Washington promptly asked Jefferson to serve as the nation's first Secretary of State in his administration.  His time in office, however, was not typical of later Secretaries of State.  Unlike his successors, who dealt primarily with foreign policy, Jefferson's work was largely focused elsewhere.

Jefferson's ideas about American foreign policy were largely halted by the president he served.  In the early days of the Republic, American foreign policy focused almost exclusively on France and Britain, two countries that were frequently at war with one another.  President Washington desired neutrality in these conflicts and instructed Jefferson to support this policy, but Jefferson, having been Minister to France, favored stronger relations with that country on the grounds that it had supported the American cause during the Revolution.  Jefferson disdained British pretensions and hoped to form stronger relations with France, which he believed had a similarly republican culture.

Another member of Washington's cabinet had different ideas about American foreign policy and the role of the Federal government in regulating the economy.  This, of course, was Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton and Jefferson would clash and compete for Washington's influence so much so that Jefferson felt himself forced out of the cabinet and resigned in 1793, at the beginning of Washington's second term as President.

Alexander Hamilton

Conflict with Hamilton and Partisanship

Jefferson was not the only member of the government concerned about Hamilton's influence on the President.  As early as 1791, Jefferson began consorting with James Madison of Virginia and Aaron Burr and DeWitt Clinton of New York to form an allied opposition to Hamilton's policies.

Differences between the two men broke down mainly around the size and influence of the Federal and State governments.  This was the outward manifestation of the conflict, but at a more cultural level, Hamilton supported urban mercantilism while Jefferson favored rural agrarianism, and both sought to use the government to support their respective interests.

Among Hamilton's tangible policies included establishing a system of credit to support industrial growth, and more importantly, to help get the young nation’s economy on solid footing.  Hamilton supported creating a Bank of the United States to help finance public debt, and he also took over the Revolutionary War debts of the states and made them the responsibility of the Federal Government.  Hamilton achieved these objectives by convincing President Washington to support them, but Jefferson and other advocates of states rights strongly opposed them, fearful of the centralized consolidation of power by the federal government.

Hamilton's less tangible, more philosophical and cultural views included many that were regarded as extreme in the American milieu.  Hamilton was something of a monarchist, and he supported rule by elites through the strength of a central Federal government. It was with this ideology that Jefferson took the most offense, realizing federal government would be strengthened at the expense of strong, individual states.  His views were the direct opposite of Hamilton's: Jefferson supported democratic government free of elite rule, and a decentralized government centered mainly in the states, not the Federal government.

Ironically, given their backgrounds one might have expected the exact opposite alignment. Unlike Jefferson, who was born an aristocratic elite, Hamilton was born to an unwed mother in the Caribbean before rising to prominence in New York and becoming a wealthy merchant.  Ironically, the truly self-made man supported rule by elites, while Jefferson, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, supported broadly democratic government.

On a variety of factors, this central constituency issue caused Hamilton and Jefferson to squabble.  Jefferson supported lowering voting qualifications, while Hamilton wanted to raise them.  Jefferson imagined a bucolic agricultural America, while Hamilton envisioned a robust and dynamic industrial country.  Jefferson supported a strong international friendship with France, while Hamilton sought to rekindle relations with Great Britain.

Seeing as this conflict broke down clearly along urban and rural lines, the opposition of the two factions created fertile ground for the creation of political parties.  Throughout the 1790's, Jefferson and Madison began growing the party that, in its earliest years, became known as the Democratic-Republican or Jeffersonian Republican Party.  Today, the party of Jefferson is a direct ancestor of the Democratic Party.  In response to Jefferson's anti-federalist views, Alexander Hamilton and his supporters, among them John Adams, began building the bedrock of the Federalist Party.  In their constituencies, the Jeffersonians appealed strongly in the South, while the Federalists were strongest in New York and New England.

With the roots of the two-party system in place, Jefferson felt like his faction was losing.  He saw Hamilton's influence on Washington as greater than his own, and thus resigned as Secretary of State in 1793.

Vice President

Jefferson thought he'd retire to his plantation, and continue working on Monticello, eschewing politics to work on more intellectual pursuits. Indeed, Jefferson at heart was an intellectual more than a politician, and he enjoyed the bucolic countryside more than the political squabbles of government.

Regardless, though, the party he created urged him to run for President in 1796.  He was ultimately awarded the Democratic-Republican nomination, but with his disastrous experience as Governor of Virginia on his mind, he was not too excited to reprise the role of chief administrator.  As was the tradition in the 18
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centuries, candidate Jefferson didn't actively campaign at all, but he came in second on election night behind the Federalist candidate John Adams.  Predictably, Jefferson won the South and Adams won the North.  Under the early rules in place, the second place finish made Jefferson the Vice President of the United States, serving a President whose party he opposed. 

In the 1790s, being Vice President didn't entail many specific duties. In fact, the very first Vice President, John Adams, famously commented, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."  One of the few duties, however, was presiding as President of the Senate.  Since the House and Senate had few operating rules, Jefferson wrote a manual about how parliamentarian procedures would operate in the Congress.  It is still used today.

Alien and Sedition Acts

In 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed four bills that became collectively known the Alien and Sedition Acts.  Individually, they were the Naturalization Act, the Alien Enemies Act, the Alien Act and the Sedition Act.  Together, they represented an affront to the Democratic-Republicans, and Thomas Jefferson himself.

The Naturalization Act required residents in the U.S. to wait 14 years before becoming citizens.  The Alien Enemies Act gave the President the sole power to expel foreigners who he deemed dangerous to national security.  The Alien and Sedition Act, together, targeted treasonous conspiracies and forbade criticism of Federal officeholders made with “intent to defame.”

The Alien and Sedition Acts were targeted directly at the Democratic-Republicans who the Federalists thought were verging on treason with their continued criticism of the Federalist-operated government.  Once in effect, the only people convicted were Democratic-Republicans who opposed the country's “Quasi-War” naval battles with France.  Jefferson and his allies, of course, were supportive of France and thus opposed conducting naval battles in conflict with the country.  Ten Jeffersonian newspaper editors were convicted and given heavy fines because of the Acts, while a Congressman from Vermont was jailed for publishing a pamphlet in opposition to President Adams.

With the purpose of the Alien and Sedition Act – to silence Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans – evident, Jefferson and his supporter Madison went to work opposing the acts.  President Adams supported the bills, putting Jefferson in the awkward position of criticizing the President in whose administration he was serving.

In opposing the Acts, however, Jefferson and Madison also ignited a Constitutional crisis.  Together, the two drafted what came to be known as the “Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions,” the first major political documents advocating the rights of the states to nullify federal law that the states believed was unconstitutional.  Citing this doctrine of “Nullification,” various states in both the North and South asserted the states’ rights to consider federal laws invalid. The Resolutions sought to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts within those states, and the Democratic-Republican-controlled Legislatures of both states approved the Resolutions. About 60 years later, Southern states would take nullification one step further to outright secession, leading to the Civil War.

Chapter 5: The Jefferson Administration, 1800-1809

Electoral Crisis

Despite the awkwardness of the partisan differences between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the two had been close friends since their days at the Constitutional Convention in 1776.  It was Adams who thought Jefferson best suited to write the Declaration.  After the war, the two worked closely together as the new nation's chief diplomats abroad.  Among all the Founding Fathers, Adams and Jefferson were the two most prominent who never contributed to the writing of the Constitution.  Even during Adams' Presidency and Thomas Jefferson's Vice Presidency, the two managed to maintained cordiality throughout the conflict over the Alien and Sedition Acts.

The election of 1800, however, effectively ended the friendship.  Jefferson won the election, albeit narrowly, and denied Adams the second term he coveted.  Adams escaped to Massachusetts, and left a curt note about the state of the White House stables behind.  No congratulations were exchanged, and the two men did not speak to one another for over a decade afterwards.